Living Lovely with Family - Yearly Traditions

Once again, I'm here to share with you a part of a weekly meme from Heidi at Mt. Hope Chronicles. This week the theme is Yearly Traditions and I gotta tell ya, I'm a girl that's big on traditions! I love celebrating the same things year after year and creating memories for my family that will last a lifetime.

Since we have so many traditions I have decided to group them by season. We're very big on birthdays and holidays in this house, so many of our traditions center around those.

Winter:

• Taking winter ski weekends together (some of us ski, some of us sled, but we all have fun together.)
  
• Celebrating Valentines day together as a family (wearing red, decorating the house, having a special meal, writing each other Valentines, exchanging small gifts ...)
  
• St. Patrick's Day - it's all about the green - green food, green decor, fun activities, etc... and we usually go to a local St. Pat's parade too.
  

Spring:

• Easter (new dresses, decorating eggs, having an egg hunt, celebrating Jesus resurrection, big dinner at our house with family visiting from out of state.)
  

• Going to sporting events together like local baseball games and basketball games

• Going to Florida to visit my two amazing friends that I have known for more than half my life. I usually only get to go see them about once a year, but it's always like we were never apart {THIS is my weekend I get to go see them and I CAN'T WAIT!!!}
  

Summer:

• Strawberry picking in June ... following by making lots of Strawberry Jam.
  

• A big family BBQ to celebrate the 4th of July. Everyone comes to our house for food, fun and games. We also go to a local 4th of July parade.

• Entertaining on the deck. Something we love to do all summer long. Whether we have friends over or family over, or both, we love to have people over to hang out and have fun. Now that we have a pool it's even better!
  

• Weekends at the beach. Or any other weekdays that we feel like going too! Basically we try to spend as much time as we can at the beach during the summer!

• Fishing together. Well, most of us ... the kids and hubby enjoy it far more than I do ... but I like to watch and take pictures!

Fall:

• Apple & pumpkin picking
• Camping
• Going to local fairs and festivals
  
• Visiting a corn maze
• Halloween night with our friends - we go to their house for dinner, then all the kids and adults head out to the neighborhood, then back to our friends' house to scope out all the loot ... this past year the girls all chose matching costumes ...
  

• Going up north to the mountains for our yearly fall trip with Bob's family - we go every year, the same week, and we always have a wonderful time hiking, spending time with family, eating out, etc...
  

• Thanksgiving day - we make a big dinner and invite everyone to come to our house. We always like to have a pre-dinner walk and take pictures of the whole group together. many people were missing from the photo this past year - but you get the idea.

• Then we move full steam ahead into our long list of Christmas traditions. I'm going to list them quickly because there are so many and also because I've also detailed them a lot back at Christmas time.

• Baking cookies, sending Christmas cards, going to a Christmas Light Parade, opening one book per night from under the tree ...
  

• Listening to Christmas carols while we sing and dance to them, watching Christmas movies together, putting up the tree together and decorating the whole house ...

• Having Christmas Eve at my in laws house, the girls telling the story of Jesus birth, going to Christmas eve service at our church, having food and games back at our house that evening, many family members sleeping over on Christmas eve ...
  

• Christmas morning spent at our house, opening stockings first, then having a big family breakfast before we open the gifts, having a big dinner together ...

And here are a few more for good measure ... we make a big deal about birthdays in our house, we even celebrate half birthdays {for the kids!}, we also love to decorate the house and 'create' holidays for no reason at all except to just simply celebrate our lives together.
{This is my Mom on her birthday last year with a flower cake I made for her.}

We love to travel and vacation together. We might not have a big house or a lot of fancy things, but we do love to spend our money on creating memories and fun times for our family. We rarely go on long trips {like a week or more}, but instead we go away for lots of long weekends throughout the year.

Honestly, I can't help but read back over this post and think how truly blessed we are! We have so much to be thankful for! And the traditions we keep year after year will leave lasting memories for our kids.

"Those are the memories that make me a wealthy soul ..." ~Bob Seger